Team Teriyaki Donut in the University District Street Scramble 2006

Introduction

For 2006, we decided Omar, our 5-year old, should start participating in Street Scrambles. I (Greg Barnes) chose to pull him along on our Trail-A-Bike. For the University District Street Scramble, Elizabeth also rode a bike with a friend, Lauren Bricker. All three of us have lived in Seattle off and on since at least 1988 and live near the University, so we know the area well. Lauren had never been in a Street Scramble before, but Omar had (in our first Scramble, University District 2004). Lauren's husband, Ruben Ortega, watched our 2-year old, Emmett. I mention Ruben to spoil his proud claims that he doesn't show up in a Google search.

Omar and I fall into the family class, and we competed under the storied team name Teriyaki Donut. (Incidentally, you may think it's cheating to use the Trail-A-Bike, since I do most of the work, but a lot of the family teams involve kids in trailers or strollers. Omar does pedal quite a bit, and he has to stay upright and alert enough to watch for bumps in the road.)

Elizabeth and Lauren competed in the women's bike class under the team name We're Not Sisters. Ironically, there was another women's team (in the foot division, I believe) named Sisters. Both Teriyaki Donut and We're Not Sisters stayed out for 3 hours.

We visited 26 checkpoints and should have gotten 790 points (800 raw points and a 10-point penalty for being a minute late). Unfortunately, I once again forgot to mark a checkpoint (37), so our official score was 760. We skipped all 5 checkpoints north of 63rd, as well as three low-value checkpoints in the University District. Our route took us west on N/NE 50th, down near Gasworks, over the University Bridge to sweep up all checkpoints south of the ship canal, along the shore to Windermere, back to Ravenna Park, up 22nd NE to the University, up near Cowen Park and back to the start.

Our raw route:

11 [University Motel], 13 [University District Library], 51 [Wide World], 41 [boat ramp], 33 [house on 7th NE], 16 [Metro building], 42 [Eastlake Park], 35 [willow tree near water], 56 [St. Marks], 36 [Interlaken bench], 55 [MOHAI], 14 [Montlake Bridge], 54 [Union Bay Preserve], 37 [Telaris], 45 [Webster Point], 46 [Windermere], 52 [Ravenna Park], 12 [Boulevard Grocery], 44 [house on 22nd NE], 43 [Suzzallo reading room], 27 [bench near herb garden], 26 [Cafe Allegro], 34 [UW entrance memorial], 24 [house on 17th NE], 32 [lightpole on walkway], 23 [R&E]

Our route, courtesy of Gmaps pedometer.

We placed first in our division (among three teams). More impressively, we had the fifth highest point total among all teams.

We're Not Sisters' route was largely the same up to Windermere, except they skipped Webster Point. After Windermere, they headed west over the hills to the checkpoints near Assumption and the Greenlake reservoir, then down Ravenna Boulevard (but they couldn't figure out how to get to the Ravenna checkpoint), up 22nd NE, with their last checkpoint #24. They also came in one minute late, and also finished first in their division.

My new bike computer says we went 22.84 miles. This comes out to about 7.6 mph.

Notes:

• Omar did great during the Scramble, subsisting on two short breaks to eat a few handfuls of Trail Mix, and one bathroom break. It helped that I took him out a few times in the preceding weeks for practice. We never managed to do a full three hours, usually because the weather was so awful, but I did learn that I needed to bring his mittens and extra layers, since he doesn't work up nearly as much of a sweat as I do. It was, of course, a great help that it was sunny and fairly warm; if the weather had been like the previous Saturday, when we ended up shivering at Gasworks and had to call Elizabeth for a ride home, I don't think he would have made much more than an hour. Then again, I probably wouldn't have, either.
• In case you're wondering, on level ground I'm slightly faster on my bike alone than with the Trail-A-Bike. Going downhill, the Trail-A-Bike combo is slightly faster, but I tend to apply the brakes a lot more to be safe. Going uphill is the major difference; it's much slower with the Trail-A-Bike. At one point (the first block uphill from 35 [willow tree near water]), we had to give up and walk the bike. This would not have happened had it been me alone. In the same vein, we saw a fast jogger leave 35 just before we got there, and the same fast jogger leave the next checkpoint, St. Marks, just before we got to that. So clearly, going up a steep hill we're just about as fast as a fast jogger. On the other hand, I almost got off the bike on a steep downhill near Seattle Prep when I was afraid my brakes weren't up to it.
• As I indicated above, our route matched Elizabeth and Lauren's very closely, at least at first. This isn't a coincidence, since we were both planning routes out loud at the same table at the same time. We generally matched each other's pace until checkpoint 41, when they were slightly ahead of us and I saw them veer toward Gasworks Park. I'd just checked the map to verify where I should drop down from Pacific to Northlake to get to the ramp, so I knew they were going in the wrong direction. Even so, I expected them to catch up to us eventually, particularly on the long trudge up Capitol Hill, and was greatly surprised to not even see them when we were descending the Hill (we both basically went up 10th Ave E and retraced our steps back down to Roanoke). I learned afterwards that they got caught by a University Bridge opening. They did eventually catch up with us near Windermere (checkpoint 46), probably because they avoided the hills of Laurelhurst by skipping checkpoint 45. We finished at nearly the same time.
• We saw other teams at or near most of the checkpoints we visited. Exceptions were 42 [Eastlake Park], 36 [Interlaken Park], 12 [Boulevard Grocery] (although there were a number of teams near the nearby 50-point Ravenna Park checkpoint), 27 [near the herb garden], 32 [narrow walkway] and 23 [R&E]. The last two were probably deserted because most teams had wisely decide to go back by then. The Interlaken Park checkpoint was particularly interesting, because we stopped there for five minutes for a snack, and I thought for sure someone would show up. After we left, near 24th Ave E, we did see the same jogger who beat us to the previous two checkpoints, heading toward the Interlaken checkpoint (I gather he tried a shortcut and got a bit lost).
• Omar said the best checkpoint was the Interlaken bench, perhaps due to the trail mix, perhaps because we were so unexpectedly isolated. I thought the Windermere checkpoint (two fish and a boot) was nice, and the boat ramp was also interesting (because before I got there I had no idea what the answer even meant, but in retrospect it's obvious).
• As is well-known by now, there were two problematic checkpoints, the Metro building/ductwork, which was off by a block, and the light pole in the narrow walkway, which had no correct answer. For the former, it was lucky that we found it easily; we had visited the house on 7th NE [33], and I was planning to go down 8th NE to visit checkpoint 16, when I noticed 8th was one way the wrong way. And then I noticed 9th was also one way the wrong way. I decided to go down 7th, then discover it was also one way the wrong way, so I gave up and rode down the sidewalk (yes, it's legal, provided you yield to pedestrians). From the sidewalk, I noticed a few teams looking at the building with the blue roof, and realized this must be the checkpoint, even though we were off by a block). As we were heading to the University Bridge, I could see the Whidbey Island Nerds looking a bit puzzled, so I motioned them to head west, saying the map was off by a block.
• One other place where I was happy to give a couple of people directions was checkpoint 52, down in the Ravenna Park ravine. This normally wouldn't be too hard to reach, but with the daylighting project in the SE corner of the park, the easiest route to the checkpoint was blocked by fences. The only guaranteed routes to it were from Cowen Park on the west, which is quite a long detour, and descending down the ravine slopes on steep trails generally only suited for pedestrians. I was going to try it from Cowen Park, but I changed my mind when coming up from the Burke-Gilman trail to get on 22nd Ave NE (checkpoint 44). I first verified that the fences were still up and you couldn't get down by the tennis courts, but figured that even descending from the entrance marked on the maps while walking the bikes was worth it for 50 points. To be sure, I followed the main trail as close to the ravine as I could get, and was rewarded by a rideable trail that descended just north of the tennis courts (after the Scramble, I noticed this trail is marked on the map, but not with a red arrow). On the way back up two bicyclists I met going down asked me if this was the right way, and I verified that it was (or, at least, that they wouldn't run into any fences).
• I also rendered a bit of help at the Suzzallo checkpoint; as we were leaving, another participant said he needed help because he wasn't a native English speaker, and didn't know what an alcove was. I explained as best I could: imagine the room is a square; an alcove is a bulge out on the side. See if you can do better.
• Some themes from the Scramble: boots (2 at Eastlake Park, one in Windermere), willow trees (one next to the water at checkpoint 35, 2 next to the pond in Telaris), and work parties (one at Eastlake Park, one at Ravenna Park).
• Lauren and Elizabeth cleverly stayed on Eastlake for the Eastlake Park checkpoint; one of them descended the stairs while the other waited. This is perfectly fine, but I couldn't do it with Omar, even if I had thought of it. At the Wide World and R&E checkpoints, I sent him inside to ask for the answer, but I couldn't have him walk down the stairs at this park, nor could I leave him alone with the bike. At Suzzallo, this meant we had to lock the bikes (the first time I can remember doing this), take our portable valuables, and walk up the stairs (Omar complained about this, as we were about 2 and a half hours into the event, but he did make it up the stairs). We were shushed in the reading room for being a little noisy (not too noisy for the rest of the library, but too noisy for a reading room).
• At one hour, we were at the Interlaken checkpoint, having accumulated 300 points. At two hours, we were taking a bathroom break in the Burke-Gilman playground, having recently left Windermere. This means we got 220 points the second hour. In the third hour we accumulated 280 points. Probably we could have improved our showing by cutting out the Webster Point checkpoint (maybe getting 47 and the ones we missed in the University District instead), but at the time we were cruising along fine, and I really didn't have any idea what type of time we'd make (other than my correct estimation that we couldn't possibly get to all the checkpoints).
• For the second time (see 2005 Night and Day), I knew the answer to a question without even visiting the checkpoint: A few days before, the subject of the oldest coffeehouses in Seattle came up during some discussions of the imminent closure of B&O Espresso on Capitol Hill. With this in my mind, Cafe Allegro's banner caught my eye, especially its founding date of 1975. And yes, we went past the checkpoint anyway.
• I thought this course was quite well-designed. There were a few places that I had thought in the past deserved checkpoints (the tip of Laurelhurst and the Ravenna Park ravine) that finally got one. Also, there were a number of navigational challenges, like how to get down into the ravine, or the best way to navigate the six checkpoints south of the ship canal. Note also that we had to do a fair amount of backtracking (down Capitol Hill, and particularly back from Windermere), because the most direct routes (from St. Marks to Interlaken via Volunteer Park, or from Windermere to Ravenna Park via Assumption), just weren't as good as the circuitious ones.
• As our first place prize, we received a chocolate bar and a fanny pack. The chocolate bar will show up in bits and pieces in Omar's lunch. I figure the fanny pack will also be useful for Omar during summer camp, as they want him to bring along a few items like sunscreen. Elizabeth and I treated ourselves and the family to a dinner at Chinook's.

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